34 PRO TIPS FOR FUSION
Compositing is essential to any professional VFX pipeline: used extensively even on features and television shows where effects are invisible to the naked eye.
Formerly developed by eyeon Software, Blackmagic Design’s Fusion is a node-based VFX and compositing tool that the industry has relied upon for decades. There was even a version of the software produced in partnership with Alias Wavefront in the late 90s. The latest iteration from Blackmagic Design is available as a free download as part of their NLE and colour correction software DaVinci Resolve, or as a standalone package – and it’s much more than just a professional compositor. From creating god rays to working with ACES and even generating rain particle FX, over the next few pages you’ll discover the best tools and techniques that have made their way into top Fusion experts’ workflows.
01 INSTALL THE REACTOR PLUGIN
Reactor is a free, open-source package manager that I would recommend for both Fusion and DaVinci Resolve users. It streamlines the installation, distribution and management of third-party content like scripts, fuses, macros, templates and titles. With Reactor, you can install these with a click of a button, rather than having to download, copy and edit individual files manually.
Download it at We Suck Less (www.steakunderwater.com/wesuckless/index.php). Tom Hankins, Colorbleed Animation Studios
02 USE TONEMAPPER FOR A FILM LOOK
One of the more interesting tools available in Fusion is called the ‘Tonemapper’. It’s something that we’ve used on virtually all our projects since its introduction.
By tone mapping using ‘filmic’ curve interpolations, you can create a far more realistic final look for your film. What basically happens under the hood is a Reinhard filter is combined with an S-Curve, giving an image contrast without blowing it out. The process gets rid of any unwanted oversaturated highlights, making final frames more pleasing to the human eye. I especially enjoy the way it handles skin tones, as seen below. Tom Hankins, Colorbleed Animation Studios
03 CREATE BETTER SLOW MOTION
A great workflow to slow down footage from either a camera or CGI render is the ‘optical flow’ node, in combination with a ‘time speed’ node.
When slowing down footage, you usually either get stuttering or a horrific blending of frames. With optical flow, intermediate frames are created. When plugged into a time speed node, these additionally generated frames give slow motion much smoother results.
What some people might not know, is that by using a ‘Copy Aux’
